Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="RareBreed" data-source="post: 8435382" data-attributes="member: 6945590">Hit Points are one reason I never got into D&D that much.  It's too much of an inconsistent abstraction for my tastes.  If hit points represent dodging, blocking, superior tactical experience, luck or divine favor (as 1st edition rules do explicitly state), it is hard to explain how those factors protect a character from a coup de grace or poison attack.  I guess the Gods or "experience" are somehow making the blade miss on a totally helpless character?  Another thing I disliked was how if a 100HP character was reduced to a single HP, he was just as effective as before.  I've heard this explained as "the character's luck ran out", and yet D&D also had rules for regular non-magical healing.  Actually a lot of D&D rules just didn't make sense to me, like the concept of AC making a character harder to hit rather than soaking damage (another topic that invites lively debate).It wasn't until many years later after looking at what 3.5/Pathfinder had become, that I realized that the D&D world had become (or perhaps always was?) "Fantasy Super Heroes".  Looking at it from that perspective, I realized that the game was (at mid level and beyond) more about a group of super-powered characters  in fantasy archetypes.  From that perspective, I could see the rationale for hit points the way the rules were written.  But I wanted something more gritty and raw.Regardless, for me personally, D&D's  damage system stressed my suspension of belief to the breaking point.  That's why my experience with (A)D&D was rather short lived in 1st edition, and didn't even look back until Pathfinder (and then, mostly for nostalgia's sake).   I much prefer the use of some meta game fate/luck/karma whatever you want to call it to help avoid some unlucky rolls or poor choice in action, which I believe James Bond 007 was the first game to introduce (could be mistaken).Come to think of it, D&D's lack of dodging or parrying rules is probably where the whole idea of hit points as more than meat came from.If all this sounds like I am a simulationist grumpy grognard, color me guilty.  Maybe I am a relatively young one at 49...and I don't have a scruffy beard.  I am ok with some kind of meta gaming points to correct hideous luck or keep a story on track.  For me, the story is derived and given form from actions and not the other way around.  For me, how something happens is just as important as what and why.</blockquote>

Verification